


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-06-03
Updated: 2002-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-20 07:52:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11331564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Nothing Gold Can Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

Nothing Gold Can Stay

## Nothing Gold Can Stay

#### by Wildy

Nothing Gold Can Stay  
by Wildy  
  
Disclaimers: Copyright can't buy me love, CC. I don't infringe. I don't own. Love is freedom. 

Spoilers for mytharc and the Krycek eps, but we've seen those. 

Song quoted without permission, but I betcha Curt approves. The "sucking chest wound" quote is from Mary Gentle's "Grunts", the fantasy novel with attitude. Recommended, much. The "weird-shit-o-meter" one is from MiB, natch. Pairing: M/K/ ah...O - I guess. 

Rating: NC-17 but only just. This is mostly ess eff and schmoop. Calling Starfish beta, Starfish beta, over... We have a situation... You _handled_ that. Wow. Thanks much. 

* * *

If I had to lose a mile If I had to touch feelings I would lose my soul The way I do I don't have to think I only have to do it The results are always perfect But that's old news Would you like to hear my voice sweetened with emotion Invented at your birth? I can't see the end of me My whole expanse I cannot see I formulate infinity And store it deep inside of me 

"Oh, Me" by the Meat Puppets 

* * *

It's totally dark. There's a smell of rotting garbage and wet concrete. I'm hurting, it hurts to breathe, there's a bubbling whistling sound every time I try. And I'm cold. This isn't good. I try to move and I can't even scrabble any. Not good at all. There's too much liquid in my mouth, too salty and thick for saliva. I need to move, move now and find a way out, must find the light - 

Whoa. If I panic I'm going to do the wrong thing. And I don't think I'm allowed another mistake at this point. The first one obviously landed me here, wherever that is... It'll come to me in a minute. And I idly remember reading somewhere that "a sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you to stay out of a firefight." Too true. I thought it was a witty line, at the time. 

Wait. Wait a minute. Dark. Cold. Badly hurt. Alone. Afraid. 

This is a dream. It's the Black Hole dream, one of the many variations of it. I was about due for that one. In a minute I'm gonna wake up with my shoulder killing me. I go limp with relief. Just a dream. What do you want this time, dream? It's gonna be bad: there's lots of blood - damn I'm cold. It must've stuck me in the basement at the camp when I was sixteen. Or maybe it's that silo doozie with the black oil bit. Just a dream, just a wintry dream. Please... 

"Who cares", I mutter. Blood rills hot down my cheek and into my ear, cooling as it goes. My voice puffs brief warmth on my lips. And if breathing's painful, just try to talk out loud. Ouch. 

Okay, I've had it with the denial. I'm not dreaming and I do give a shit. I'm lying in an alley somewhere in the DC area with a big hole in my chest and a few minutes to go. Just a few minutes is how long I relaxed, dammit. Just a moment with my guard down, and look. Just look at that. Fuck. 

I don't know how long I've been out, how long since I crawled in here and hid behind the dumpster. Long enough that it's too late. I lost too much blood. 

They got the drop on me because there were three of them, I got 'em back because I'm quick... But that doesn't help now. I obviously can't go anywhere. I wriggled back here headfirst and now I'm stuck - even if I could move a little, which I can't, what then? I'm dying. And I can't think very straight anyway. Shit. And it hurts to breathe, but I've said that. So if I stop - when I do - it won't hurt anymore. I'll just close my eyes and never open them again. What a plan. Damn I'm good. 

I'm cold. I've said that. Okay, I'm babbling. Wait until it happens to you and see if you make more sense... 

And my eyes do close, all by themselves they close, and it feels mellow, not good but mellow, letting go, sinking, numbing. I'll just rest a bit and see how deep the black is, unfolding around me.... There's a golden glow suffusing it and a breathy windy voice calling - calling - 

Then this awful jolt of pain rakes my chest and I try to scream through a huge mouthful of congealed blood and there's light, dancing on me like tendrils of breathing sunshine in the dark, flickering on my chest, snaking into me and a murmuring voice like small bells ringing, saying, "Alexei... Alexei..." If I'm far enough gone for hallucinations like these how can it hurt so fucking much? It's not fair. I yell on and on in perfect choking silence, and a detached, sarcastic part of me is listening with a smirk.... 

I thought you could take pain, tough guy? 

Yeah, yeah, I'm taking it, I'll argue with you in a minute when my internal organs are done rupturing, OK? It's gonna stop one way or another, nothing can hurt this much for this long.... 

Is that right? Remember Tunguska, dicknose. Remember growing up, remember the rest of your life. Remember Mulder. 

Oh, shut up. 

The pain does subside, gradually, leaving me flat and panting and chilled with sweat against the damp concrete. I take one deep breath, then a second one. Then I blink in the flickering gold-and-black. 

I roll experimentally on my side, my prosthesis scraping loudly on the ground. 

There's no pain, I'm breathing fine and the fist-sized hole in my chest is just - gone. 

The snakelets of light slide along my body, flowing up to my face like water, like worms... like, oh no, like oil, golden oil.... The windchiming whisper wraps words around and inside me. 

"Come now, Alexei. Come to us. Be ours." 

I grab for my gun before I can think, push back, roll, lean on elbow, sit up, grip.... Two whole seconds. Too slow. No good anyway. The very air tinkles, laughing at me. The terrible, bright dazzle devils my eyes and climbs, caressing, awful, between my lips, up my nose, liquid probe to my brain no NO not again no 

What the hell? 

Warm gold, bright quiet. 

Calm, soft, strong, clean. 

Be at peace. We are not sick children like those you know of. We will not inflict distress on you. This is not "mindrape". 

"Wh - wh - whuff. Wha'?" 

We regret that you little beings have to contend with them but we did not guess they would create your species. We did not know they would let you evolve to self-awareness, or we would have stopped it. It was a cruel thing for them to do. 

Voice shining unbearable into all my shadows, knowing me, knowing me and nowhere to hide from the lucent agreement inside.... 

They made your kind badly indeed. So twisted into suffering. We are looking for the ones who took you once. We felt their mark in you. We regret. Had any choice been given us, we would not achieve rapport with you. We are aware of your discomfort. But the ones we are searching for were spawned by us and are our [charge? burden? destiny?] and only you were reachable of those who know where they are. We regret that rebuilding you further is not feasible. The ensuing physical stress would terminate your bodily functions. We hope this is sufficient repayment. 

A parent? A parent visiting a real sick kid in a - mental hospital. 

Holy hell. 

Last I knew, but that's a while back, your boy/girl/whatever was in room 1013 at level minus-eight of our North Dakota facility, sirs and/or ma'ams, and you will notice we let him/her/it/them keep their little red wagon to live in.... 

Oh, God. God screamed and ran. 

Shit. The whole thing - all of our history, the whole hopeless struggle, fifty-plus fucking years of merciless moves and countermoves, the man-eating future staring us in the face, the whole motherfucking shebang... 

Sick children put away safe where they can't hurt others, and we aren't anything except their badly made, soon-to-be broken toys. 

The cosmic joke to end them all, and no one will believe me. Not in the hundred years we don't have. I want to laugh and cry. I want to get shitface drunk and blow my head off. I want to go see Mulder and - 

Hey, no way. Where did that come from? Mulder is the last person to go to with this, Mulder wouldn't believe me if I told him sugar is sweet, and I sure don't need a broken nose to go with the rest of today's festivities. What ails you, Alex? Mulder. Right. I need Mulder like a hole in the head. 

I want this shiny shit outta me yesterday is what I want. Dear hive-critter: now that you have your wayward offspring's addy, will you kindly get the fuck out of my system and let me be. Thanks a ton for saving my insignificant pointless life, but your kiddo left me with this serious phobia of possession by oiliens of any color, race or persuasion. Nice meeting you. Bye bye. 

When extant in this, our proper state, we do not possess, but share. Your bitterness is unwarranted, its source not of us but of yourself. You have been existing at unnatural levels of pain even for one of your species. Those have damaged you. 

Well, no shit. Thanks for telling me, Goldie. Now out. 

This other of your kind that you are thinking of, that you are linked to - he would talk to us. You think of him as being eager for contact with other intelligences. 

I wobble back up to my feet, subtly supported by ways and means I don't want to think about. There's a taste in my mouth like old blood and electricity and a pulsing bright film on everything. I'll ignore that crap about links. I'll ignore the whole damn nightmare until it goes away. Go 'way. 

"Fuck off, damn you!" 

That came out in words, unguarded and vicious. Then I realize the whole thing - conversation, exchange, whatever - hasn't been spoken, hasn't taken any time at all, has used only thoughts... And the triple-damned alien is having none of it. It cradles my mind, its mental voice firm, reasonable, imparting to me that throwing a tantrum won't do me any good, but once I've taken it where it wants to be it will let me go. Hoo boy, have I heard that line before, from human and oilien both. The difference being, this is happening in my brain with me still in it, and the thing is telling the truth. I can feel it. 

All right, then. Let's walk. I discover I collapsed not too far from Hegal to get there, even if twenty minutes on foot is kind of a tall order for me just now. I only see two people, who don't look into the right shadows to see me, lucky them. And there's the blue cathodic flicker at that corner window.... 

Limp across street; pick lock  & enter; hobble up elevator and down hallway. I lean winded against the door where the golden 42 catches faint glints of light, making me shudder hard, once. I'm sore all through and still freezing cold. The alien wasn't just talking about my arm when it said further reconstruction was impossible. It meant blood loss too. I'm dizzy. 

Of all places, I don't want to be here. 

I use the barrel of my gun to tap "shave and a haircut" on the fake wood paneling. Whimsy never hurts. I hear faint sounds over the muffled mutter of the television, and almost fall into the apartment when the door swings open. I catch myself on the jamb, working hard not to lose the gun. 

Mulder is wearing sweatpants, a grey Georgetown Hoyas tee with the sleeves ripped off, a SIG Sauer and a priceless look on his face. For three whole seconds his mouth sags open and his eyes jump all over me, taking in the bullet-shredded leather of my jacket and the three or four pints of fresh blood on my clothes and face. Something like fear glitters briefly in his eyes and I smirk at him as insolently as I know how. He looks really good like that. Then his patented deadpan clicks into place and he says flatly : 

"Pick some other doorstep to die on, Krycek. Go to the ER." 

"IV feeds are too easy to spike, makes hospitals as dangerous as jails. I'm not dying, Mulder - I'm not even hurt, just a bit weak. Let me in. You won't believe what I have to show you." 

I giggle, and blink hard against the brief doubling of my vision. Twice the Mulder for the prism, I mean "price", dammit... The giggle devolves into something strangled and mercifully silent. I gotta be more fucked up than I thought, because next I know I'm being supported by a strong arm across my shoulders and dumped on Mulder's old saggy couch. Long, nimble hands explore my chest with surprising gentleness, snagging on the torn edges of the hole in my shirt. The touch goes through me for some reason, like those fingers are trailing under my skin, inside me.... I very slowly blink and sigh and lose my bones somewhere. I can't help it. 

"Don't pass out on me, Krycek. Were you in these clothes when this happened to them?" 

"Cleverly put. Yeah, I was. But I'm fine now." 

He frowns at me, distractedly wiping his hand on his shirt with a fleeting twist of his mouth. There's something in his eyes I've never seen there. Fear? Something. Maybe awe. 

"There's a dip under there like someone took a chunk out with an ice-cream scoop. But it could've happened years ago by the looks of the scar." 

"Happened earlier tonight. 45-caliber ice-cream scoop, lots of strawberry sauce. I'm fine. Got an X-file for you 'cause you're cute." 

He snorts at that. 

"If you're pulling my chain with cheap FX and dime-store blood, I'll have you notice that Halloween is two months away, and you're a bit old for trick-or-treats." 

"Like I have time for games? What happened to 'I Want to Believe'? Get real, Mulder. This is trick and treat. Well, it's show and tell, really. Do you believe in the possible existence of extraterrestrial life?" 

I giggle again. This is too funny, in a horrible kind of way. Got a little gold for you Mulder, buy you the stars maybe. 

Do your thing, Bright-Eyes. 

I brace myself for the burning, gruesome discomfort I remember from that other time, nausea in every cell, a weapon pulling out. But it's a silky flow, considerate and gentle. 

Mulder flinches and gives a drawnout breath, staring with all he has at the bright dribbles exiting my body to gather between us and pulse there... 

"It wants to talk to you." 

"I can hear... I can hear them," he whispers, the way a child on Christmas morning would say, "a puppy...." Stupidly, I want to cry. I don't hear a thing now, and am I sorry? 

And he drops to his knees, hands empty and upturned, loose and yearning, saying in a breath, "Yes... come..." I watch in a storm of tearing things as he invites them in, his open lips flashing treasure, the glows meeting on his face, sliding in, painting his pupils in swirls of goldleaf... He laughs out loud, and I never heard him do that, is that what it takes to make Mulder happy? Sitting on his heels with his head thrown back, shining in the embrace of a mystery resolved, smiling to himself and at the things sharing his mind.... 

A sharp pain in my eyes reminds me to blink. 

I need to get out of here and go to ground. If I don't find out who sent those guys, they might as well have succeeded, and there'll be no alien to save my ass next time. I drag myself up out of the couch and back to business as usual. All the heavy stuff, the lead bones of what I am. 

But Mulder is up off the floor in a flash, standing in my way, his eyes flickering back from inhuman gold to dark hazel, grabbing my shoulders, holding me there. Rooted there. What the hell? 

"Don't go." 

"Mulder, I have to go. I'm not safe, in every meaning of the phrase. And I've got things to do. Pressing things." 

He gives me a tiny, wiseass grin, that I blink at stupidly. His hands weigh me down, seeping warmth into me. 

"One of them being to clean yourself up and find fresh clothes ASAP, wouldn't you say? That's something you can do here." 

Oh. I'm speaking to Goldie. Well, duh. Mulder wouldn't - well, he wouldn't give me a light if we met in the middle of a forest fire. 

"You know, that's an offer your host wouldn't extend to me. We're not friends, and he'd resent you like hell for inviting me. And strangle me for accepting it. Thanks but no thanks. Let go." 

And Mulder chuckles. 

"It's not the alien speaking, Krycek, and I am extending the offer. It's the least I can do after this. After you brought me - this is - do you know what this could mean?" 

"No I don't," I snap. "I'm too fucking dumb. But they won't save us, I know that much... Maybe they know the question to your apartment number, though. Ah, screw this. I can use a shower. Just don't open the door to anyone. And don't call Scully either, you hear? I'm not looking for another gunshot wound today, or a flying kick to the nuts. And she'd arrest me." 

"Scully's in California," he answers absently, already turned inwards again as I step back and aim myself at the bathroom. 

By the way, I always knew that the answer to life, the universe and everything was at number 42. But I won't admit it. And Mulder didn't smile. So he's probably heard that one a million times. So I'm an idiot, so what's new? 

If you've never washed off a lot of dried blood and muscle pains with a lot of soap and hot water, you don't know bliss. I love it. Still alive, and I love it. The whole thing is a dream in steam and scalding rain. Did I really almost die and meet Goldie, and can I possibly be sluicing off in Mulder's shower stall? "This definitely rates a nine on my weird-shit-o-meter." The bathroom door clicks open, and I don't even tense. Going soft, Alex. Well, I do have a switchblade in the soap-dish. 

"I'm leaving some clothes for you out here." 

"Thanks," I call back, not intending to be out of here until I used up all the hot water. I sigh, considering Mulder. Remembering the edgy tension and barely concealed storms that have come to define the man for me. Remembering them as utterly gone as that deadly wound of mine, him kneeling on the floor, his eyes gilded in an otherworld ecstasy of communication, the line of the tendons in the long throat, and that spot where the jawbone attaches to it, a perfect turning flow. 

Whoa. 

I'm sporting a boner over the shape of the guy's jawbone? 

You're sick, chelovek. 

I have known that for a while. Now hush your mouth and pass me the soap. 

A dozen slow strokes to my dick with my mind over the way his hands were resting palms-up on his thighs, over the long, strong muscles there, shifting oh-so-slightly and the way his lips opened over light-painted teeth, and I squeeze hard and come outright. 

(gone gone gone into you, into all, flying - oh good oh god) 

That went so fast it was almost humiliating. Well, I needed it. I was all worked up. Close brushes with death make me horny. Doesn't mean a thing. 

Fool yourself, you're not fooling me. That's a heartache there, that pull in your chest. It's a pulled muscle, dolboyeb. You got yours, now shut up. 

I hate trying to dry my back with an undersize towel, the logistics are all wrong. "How's the arm?" "Either too stiff or not there at all." Ha. I've no complaint with the clothes, though. Black jeans, black turtleneck, black socks - black boxers? MiB specials, wow. I leave my own there in a pile, they're a loss, even the jacket. I just reclaim my wallet and sundry hardware out of it and pat it goodbye before I leave the room. My boots are squishy. That was a lot of blood. 

"You look a lot better," Mulder tells me. I don't answer. I'm too busy staring. Mulder's a looker, he always was, but - talk about gilding refined gold and painting the lily. He's sprawled on that sofa like humankind's answer to dozing cats and he shines. The alien's pulsing glow turns him to living artwork, tiny threads flowing all over him, caging him in some star-given freedom from pain... That incredible, gorgeous mouth like a goldsmith's furnace, ajar on blinding knowledge... 

"You look so damn happy," I try to say, not recognizing my voice for the wobble and croak in it. 

He smiles up at me and doesn't stop, now it's a grin and I'm basking in it, it radiates - well, literally. I've never seen him do that, and it transfigures him. It fucking hurts. 

"Does it show? It doesn't seem fair to you, does it?" 

And somehow I've walked straight up to that sofa, I'm standing right next to it, I'm looking straight down at him and he's glowing up at me, glowing, god. Then he very simply, smoothly, scarily grabs my hand and pulls me down. I go like water. 

And he's holding me against him, we're kissing and I don't know how it - I didn't try to - but it's all liquid sunshiny lips feeding thirst and slaking hunger, it's my own starstruck laughter and he's hushing me and whispering and peeling clothes, he's freeing my arm and touching me to the soul, to the bone, with the alien glowslowflowing around and within for eternities welded together, inside and between us, skin and blood and his hands and mouth on me... All over me, all over my life, remaking it, smoothing my skin and my past and the rest of me, firing nerves I didn't know I had and I'm remolding the whitegold lava of him barehanded, baremouthed, to satinfinish perfection... We are both screaming, pushing into each other with everything we are, fusing into hardcore flashpoint alloy and I don't even know who's inside who when we come but it's golden ribbons braiding, mating, flashing on and on and on and it never stops, it was always waiting there for us at this point in endless time we call now, now, now. Starbright. Golden. Whisper. Fade to black. 

I drop out of the black into consciousness like a thrown pebble. My head's in his lap, his hand in my hair, the other one on my chest holding mine and he's still smiling. I try a word made all of silent air. 

"You fainted on me, you idiot." 

"I," licking dry lips with a parched tongue, "am not surprised. Mulder?" 

"Yes, Alex?" 

"Was this Goldie's, uh, the alien's idea?" 

His smile disapppears down into this very grave, tender expression; he gives a minute headshake and tightens his grip on my hand. 

"No. No, it wasn't. It was my idea - and yours. The alien - the alien just told me enough about you that I'd know what I've been missing all this time." 

A flash of pure terror goes through me. There's stuff about me I don't want anybody to know ever. Things I've done. Things I am. But if Mulder knew those, he wouldn't hold me like he does. He's still talking. God, he's got a great voice. 

"The alien just let me know how much you loved me and for how long you had. And in how much pain you are. And that some people are even lonelier than I am. And it helped us to touch each other right. That's all." 

I grin feebly into his eyes. 

"Does that make what happened the first interplanetary threesome in human history?" 

He grins back and I blink. But the light there is just Mulder minus some shadows. There's no jeweled dazzle in it anymore. It's beautiful for all that... Beautiful. Yeah. 

"It's gone now, right?" 

But I don't need Mulder's nod of confirmation. It's gone to have a talk with its damaged spawn - with a little luck, it will mention to it in passing that breaking toys is wasteful. Right now? I can't care about the planet. I'll get up tomorrow and go back out into the dark and do what I must. I'll tell Mulder some of the facts about me and this moment will be like a dream. 

But tonight there is light and I flow into it the way I only just learned to do. We don't live long. We're not much at all in the grand scheme of things. The only thing that ever gives us value is what others feel about us. And no, it does not last. That's why it matters. 

That's why tonight is golden. 

* * *

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Wildy 


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